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Sebastian Vettel led team mate Kimi Raikkonen as Ferrari made full use of their soft tyres to top the timesheet in first practice at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Friday morning.

Mercedes, who unlike the Prancing Horse only used Pirelli’s medium compound rubber, were half a second back, with championship leader Nico Rosberg edging Lewis Hamilton in the fight for third.

Max Verstappen, making his debut for Red Bull, was a solid sixth behind new team mate Daniel Ricciardo, while Toro Rosso returnee Daniil Kvyat ended up in 12th, four spots and half a second down on the other STR11 of Carlos Sainz.

Esteban Ocon, participating in FP1 in place of Jolyon Palmer, had a disappointing session for Renault, completing just six untimed laps before being halted by a technical issue.

Sergio Perez also experienced mechanical woes, though Force India were able to repair his car and return the Mexican to the track before the end of the session.

While the top quartet were in a league of their own – and the Red Bulls completed a mini-group with Williams’ Valtteri Bottas – it was very close behind, with less than one second covering Sainz in eighth down to Perez in 14th.

That grouping included the second Williams of Felipe Massa, McLaren’s Fernando Alonso, Renault’s Kevin Magnussen, Kvyat and Perez’s team mate Nico Hulkenberg.

While Alonso therefore earned McLaren’s heavily-revised MP4-31 a place in the top 10, team mate Jenson Button was far less happy. He finished 19th – 1.4s down on Alonso – and complained of handling issues during the 90-minute session.

Haas’s Romain Grosjean was also unhappy, labelling his car a ‘disaster’ in low-speed corners. The Frenchman – who along with team mate Esteban Gutierrez did not set a time in the opening half of the session – wound up 16th, with Gutierrez one spot further back.

The session was also notable for a couple of off-track moments in Turn 1 for Hamilton, whose Mercedes is using a new MGU-H after his recent problems, one for Raikkonen, and a spin by Massa in Turn 5.

Sebastian Vettel kept Ferrari on top in a rain-hit final practice session in Shanghai on Saturday morning, though eight drivers – including Mercedes duo Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton – opted not to set a time in the tricky conditions.

Valtteri Bottas – the first driver to venture out on the track, fifteen minutes into the session – was second fastest for Williams, just ahead of Force India’s Sergio Perez and Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz, with Haas’s Esteban Gutierrez completing the top five.

The session began amid heavy rainfall and treacherous conditions, but with around 20 minutes remaining the rain had abated enough to allow drivers to switch from full wets to intermediates, with Vettel quickly moving to the top of the timesheet.

There were several off-track moments throughout the session as drivers struggled to keep control of their machines on the greasy surface, though Haas’s Romain Grosjean was the only spinner.

Ferrari threw down the gauntlet to chief rivals Mercedes by finishing one-two in Friday afternoon’s second practice session in China, with Kimi Raikkonen leading team mate Sebastian Vettel by 0.109s.

Raikkonen’s table-topping time came forty minutes into the session, after all of the top runners had switched to supersoft tyres.

Morning pacesetter Nico Rosberg could only get within 0.237s of the Finn as he finished third quickest, with team mate Lewis Hamilton fourth fastest in the second Silver Arrow. Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo completed the top five, but was a full 1.2s slower than Raikkonen’s benchmark.

After an incident-filled first session, FP2 began with more drama as Esteban Gutierrez – sidelined this morning with an electrical issue – ran into problems as the brakes on his Haas caught fire.

The Mexican limped back to the pits and did not return to the track for the remainder of the session. Even so his tally of four laps was more than Kevin Magnussen could manage; the Dane spending the entire 90 minutes confined to the Renault garage as the team continued to investigate his FP1 tyre failure.

For the first time since June of last year, Sunday will see a Grand Prix start without a Mercedes on pole position after Sebastian Vettel clocked the fastest time in qualifying at Marina Bay. Vettel won the Ferrari-Red Bull battle, beating Daniel Ricciardo by over half a second, with Mercedes consigned to the third row of the grid.

Kimi Raikkonen was third fastest in the second Ferrari, a fraction up on Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat. Then came the beleaguered Silver Arrows of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, followed by Williams’ Valtteri Bottas, Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen, Felipe Massa in the second Williams and the Lotus of Romain Grosjean.

Q1 had seen Kvyat pip Hamilton for fastest time, 1m 45.340s to 1m 45.765s, but while they had to use supersoft tyres for that, Vettel was third with 1m 46.017s on the softs. Jenson Button squeaked through in the dying moments for McLaren, 1m 46.891s giving him 15th place at the expense of Sauber’s Felipe Nasr on 1m 46.965s. His partner Marcus Ericsson also failed to make it on 1m 47.088s and Pastor Maldonado couldn’t better 1m 47.323s for Lotus.

In the Marussia camp, Will Stevens jumped ahead of new team mate Alex Rossi on their final runs, with 1m 51.021s to 1m 51.523s. Both have five-place grid penalties for unscheduled gearbox changes.

As Vettel beat Kvyat with 1m 44.743s to 1m 44.979s, Carlos Sainz clobbered the wall with the left-rear of his Toro Rosso in Turn 19 as he, the McLaren drivers and the Force India drivers battled to get through to Q3. The resultant yellow flags ruined that, leaving the order outside the top 10 as Nico Hulkenberg 1m 46.305s, Fernando Alonso 1m 46.328s, Sergio Perez 1m 46.885s, Sainz 1m 46.894s and Button 1m 47.019s.

As Vettel set the pace on the first Q3 runs with 1m 44.305s, things got worse for Mercedes as Hamilton aborted his after running wide over the kerb in Turn 7. Ricciardo was second, Raikkonen third and Kvyat fourth.

The second runs merely confirmed the order, as Ricciardo trimmed down to 1m 44.428s for second, Raikkonen stayed on 1m 44.667s, and Kvyat improved only marginally to 1m 44.745s. Hamilton, however, jumped from ninth to fifth with 1m 45.300s, as Rosberg failed to improve on 1m 45.415s.

Right at the end, Vettel emphasised his superiority when he slammed round in 1m 43.885s to take his first pole since Brazil 2013. Ferrari’s last pole was Germany 2012.

Bottas took seventh for Williams with 1m 45.676s, as Verstappen’s 1m 45.798s gave Toro Rosso eighth. Massa was a disappointing ninth on 1m 46.077s, as Grosjean completed the top 10 for Lotus with 1m 46.413s.

Sebastian Vettel was the class of the field on Saturday evening in Singapore, as Ferrari and Red Bull dominated final practice. Kimi Raikkonen and Daniil Kvyat were the only men to get within half a second of the German, while the lead Mercedes – Lewis Hamilton in fifth – was over a second off the pace as the world champions showed no sign of regaining their competitive edge.

Daniel Ricciardo was fourth fastest, with Nico Rosberg trailing his Mercedes team mate in sixth.

“1.1s off, right?” Hamilton asked his crew. It said everything.

In the first half of the hour-long session it was Kvyat, fastest in FP2, who initially set the pace again, with 1m 47.629s. But by the halfway stage it was the Ferraris to the fore on the soft Pirellis with Vettel on 1m 46.728s and Raikkonen on a more distant 1m 47.571s. Then came Kvyat, Rosberg, Hamilton – who went off in Turn 7 without hitting anything – and Ricciardo. There was no sign at that stage of a Mercedes comeback, and the team tweeted that the pace of their rivals was genuine and very quick… Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz were in the top ten for Toro Rosso, in seventh and 10th, sandwiching Romain Grosjean’s Lotus and Felipe Massa’s Williams.

As the session entered its second half Ricciardo quickly moved ahead of the Mercedes and Raikkonen to take second place, before being supplanted by his team mate.

Everyone switched to the supersoft tyres in the final 15 minutes, and Ricciardo – the first to take on the softer rubber – jumped ahead, only to be displaced by Raikkonen and Kvyat who undercut his 1m 46.359s best with 1m 46.132s and 1m 46.167s respectively. But Vettel – a three-time winner here – was the star, looking like his old self as he slid round in 1m 45.682s to put the benchmark 0.450s beyond reach.

It turned out that Mercedes had not found the silver bullet overnight, as Hamilton was 1.1s off the leading Ferrari, and Rosberg 1.5s adrift of it.

Putting their troubles into full perspective, Fernando Alonso in the formerly uncompetitive McLaren was only 0.014s off Rosberg, in seventh place… It wasn’t a bad day for the Woking team, as Jenson Button was 13th, the half-second gap to his team mate filled by the understeering Toro Rossos of Sainz and Verstappen, Marcus Ericsson’s Sauber, Valtteri Bottas’s Williams and Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India.

Sebastian Vettel continued his good form during practice for the Austrian Grand Prix by topping the final free practice session on Saturday morning.

Vettel posted a fastest lap of 1:09.994 to finish 0.017 seconds clear of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton as rain prevented any of the drivers from improving their times in the final 20 minutes of the session.

On the soft tire runs in the first half of the session, Ferrari once again managed to compete closely with Mercedes as Kimi Raikkonen slotted into third place behind Vettel and Hamilton.

However, a red flag period caused by another stoppage for Fernando Alonso meant that no-one was able to complete a qualifying simulation as originally planned.

Nico Rosberg won the Monaco Grand Prix for the third year in a row on Sunday, after a late strategy error demoted Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton from first to third behind the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel.

Starting from pole, Hamilton had dominated proceedings up until lap 64, when the safety car was deployed following a heavy shunt for Max Verstappen at Ste Devote. With the world champion leading by around 20s, Mercedes decided there was enough time for a precautionary extra pit stop.

They were wrong. Hamilton emerged from the pit lane marginally behind Vettel, with Rosberg already heading the queue behind the safety car. When racing resumed, Rosberg cleared off into the distance, while Hamilton could do nothing to overhaul the Ferrari, despite his fresher tyres.

Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo came home fourth and fifth respectively for Red Bull’s best result of the season, followed by the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen and the Force India of Sergio Perez.

Eighth place went to Jenson Button, securing the first points of McLaren’s revived Honda partnership, with Sauber’s Felipe Nasr ninth and Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz – who started from the pit lane – completing the top ten.

Verstappen escaped serious injury in his accident, triggered when he misjudged an attempted pass on Romain Grosjean and hit the rear of the Lotus before plunging into the Turn 1 barriers. Max Verstappen handed 5-place grid penalty for CanadianGP. Deemed responsible in Grosjean collision.